stopped--dead!"

"And where you heered him callin' an' caught the stench, an' all the
rest of the wicked entertainment," cried Hank, with a volubility that
betrayed his keen distress.

"And where your excitement overcame you to the point of producing
illusions," added Dr. Cathcart under his breath, yet not so low that his
nephew did not hear it.

* * * * *

It was early in the afternoon, for they had traveled quickly, and there
were still a good two hours of daylight left. Dr. Cathcart and Hank lost
no time in beginning the search, but Simpson was too exhausted to
accompany them. They would follow the blazed marks on the trees, and
where possible, his footsteps. Meanwhile the best thing he could do was
to keep a good fire going, and rest.

But after something like three hours' search, the darkness already down,
the two men returned to camp with nothing to report. Fresh snow had
covered all signs, and though they had followed the blazed trees to the
spot where Simpson had turned back, they had not discovered the smallest
indication of a human being--or for that matter, of an animal. There
were no fresh tracks of any kind; the snow lay undisturbed.

It was difficult to know what was best to do, though in reality there
was nothing more they _could_ do. They might stay and search for weeks
without much chance of success. The fresh snow destroyed their only
hope, and they gathered round the fire for supper, a gloomy and
despondent party. The facts, indeed, were sad enough, for Defago had a
wife at Rat Portage, and his earnings were the family's sole means of
support.

Now that the whole truth in all its ugliness was out, it seemed useless
to deal in further disguise or pretense. They talked openly of the facts
and probabilities. It was not the first time, even in the experience of
Dr. Cathcart, that a man had yielded to the singular seduction of the
Solitudes and gone out of his mind; Defago, moreover, was predisposed to
something of the sort, for he already had a touch of melancholia in his
blood, and his fiber was weakened by bouts of drinking that often lasted
for weeks at a time. Something on this trip--one might never know
precisely what--had sufficed to push him over the line, that was all.
And he had gone, gone off into the great wilderness of trees and lakes
to die by starvation and exhaustion. The chances against his finding
camp again were overwhelming; the delirium that was